There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863Quotes
To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.
—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BCO citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCYou campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCIt is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001